


Child in Disguise & Former Gangster

by MaroonLeoInvestedCrybaby



Series: Shazam & Plastic Man [1]
Category: Justice League - All Media Types, Plastic Man (Comics), Shazam! (2019), Shazam! | Captain Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Fluff, Secret Identity Reveals, Slight Violence, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaroonLeoInvestedCrybaby/pseuds/MaroonLeoInvestedCrybaby
Summary: The origin story of how Billy Batson and Patrick O'Brian discovered each other's secret identities through a simple misunderstanding and far-fetched conclusions.
Series: Shazam & Plastic Man [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923154
Comments: 9
Kudos: 119





	Child in Disguise & Former Gangster

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is loosely connected to the first entry for the "Shazam & Superman" series and if you haven't read it yet, I recommend giving it a read but you don't need any background to enjoy this fic. The idea for this fic came from the Plastic Man cameo in "Sibling Worries" and I thought it would be hilarious if Plastic Man became a self-proclaimed uncle of sorts to Billy Batson. There will definitely be plenty of entires for this series because, with an uncle that can literally turn into anything, the possibilities are endless. Anyways, onto the fic!

Captain Marvel and Plastic Man both transported back to the Watchtower after another mission together and once they materialized back onto the pad, they began walking to the cafeteria to get some food. 

Plastic Man was gesturing around with his rubbery arms and casually talking about what kind of food he wanted to get from the mess hall. However, Captain Marvel had stopped in his tracks and Plastic Man turned to look back at his teammate who looked like he was suddenly panicking. Plastic Man rushed back over to his partner’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Cap? You alright?”

Captain Marvel’s fearful expression suddenly disappeared when he looked over at Plastic Man and he tried to brush away the whole moment by smiling that huge grin he flashed at the cameras all the time.

“Yeah, I’m fine! Just remembered I have something important to do…and I need to do it right now.”

“Well, we can always grab some grub later. You sure you don’t need any help with what you got going on?”

Captain Marvel shook his head and started walking back the way he came from.

“No, no, I’m fine! You go ahead, I’ll see you later Plas!”

Plastic Man smiled and waved as Captain Marvel disappeared around the corner. However, the stretchy hero couldn’t help but feel a little worried about the way Captain Marvel acted right before he left. It seemed…serious. 

After debating for a few more seconds, Plastic Man ran back to the transporter and found the crew member operating it. He wrapped an arm around the member and the employee was startled for a moment until they realized who was standing there.

“O-Oh, hello, Plastic Man! How can I help you?”

Plastic Man gestured over to the transporter pad with his other hand that transformed into an arrow.

“I need you to teleport me to wherever you sent Captain Marvel a second ago.”

The crew member looked uncomfortable and rubbed the back of their head.

“U-Uh, well sir, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Plastic Man pulled his arrow arm back down to his side and then stared at the employee, his mind full of suspicions.

“What do you mean by that? Why can’t you send me where a fellow League member went?”

“It’s because he asked me to keep the place he went a secret. I’m only doing what he asked me to do…sir.”

Plastic Man took his arm off the crew member and then looked over at the transporter pad. Why would Captain Marvel need his location to be kept a secret even from other League members? Was there a situation where if more heroes showed up, than things would get worse? If that was the case, was Captain Marvel dealing with a kidnapping? Why did he leave on his own?

“Sir? Sir?”

Plastic Man shook himself from his frantic thoughts and turned back to the worried crew member. He placed his hands on the employee’s shoulders and took a quick, calming breath to gather his thoughts.

“Look,” Plastic Man glanced down at the writing on the crew member’s name tag, “George, I need to know where Captain Marvel went. He might be in a situation that is more serious than we realize.”

George’s eyes widened and he looked over at the console for activating the transporter and then looked back at the stretchy hero who was waiting impatiently for an answer. After a moment, George nodded at Plastic Man and walked over to console to start putting in the location that Captain Marvel traveled to. Plastic Man stretched over to the transporter pad and then smiled up at George.

“Thanks, George. You did the right thing.”

George chuckled shakily as he put his hand on the lever to activate the transporter pad.

“I hope you’re right, sir. Good luck.”

Plastic Man saluted as he felt his body materializing and once his atoms were finally connecting back together, he realized he was in some sort of neighborhood in a busy city. The hero walked around the various homes and spotted a newspaper on the ground. He picked it up and looked for the city name. After a second, Plastic Man spotted it. He was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

To get a better view of the city, Plastic Man turned his body into a spring and bounced to the top of a nearby building and looked all around the city. It was a particularly cloudy day but it wasn’t raining yet. The rubbery hero stretched his legs across the roofs of the buildings and eventually settled on one that was close to a town square of sorts. There was a busy intersection and hundreds of people were bustling by and hurrying to work.

Plastic Man stood on the roof of that building and looked down all around at the streets, trying to spot a hero wearing the obvious red suit with a glowing lightening bolt among the crowd. After a moment, Plastic Man spotted Captain Marvel and saw that he was making his through the torrent of people easily enough and then slipping into an alleyway.

Plastic Man was about to stretch over towards the hero but a single bolt of lightning shot down from the clear sky and struck somewhere in that backstreet.

Out of that same alleyway appeared a young boy with black hair and wearing a red shirt. He looked around and then hefted a backpack onto his back and merged back into the crowd. 

Plastic Man’s mind was halting like a record caught in a loop and he watched as the kid walked down the sidewalk and towards a school. 

Was that…? Is that kid…?

Plastic Man shook his head to clear his thoughts and started stretching his legs as he walked over the roofs of the buildings as he kept his eyes on the kid that looked eerily like Captain Marvel.

In a swift motion, Plastic Man stretched down to an alleyway near the kid in the red shirt and hid himself behind a trashcan. He listened for when the kid passed in front of him, then stretched onto the kid’s backpack and turned himself into a round pin with Plastic Man’s face on it. The kid never even suspected the hero was there and continued on his way.

A few minutes later, Plastic Man realized that the kid was heading to school and the hero internally sighed as he bounced up the school steps along with the kid.

This was going to be a boring stakeout.

The kid weaved his way through the crowds of other kids in the hallway and hurried over to his locker. Plastic Man panicked, thinking he was going to be stuck in a locker for a whole school day, but the kid was only grabbing a textbook and then closed the locker.

From behind the red-shirted kid, another kid with a crutch was coming over surprisingly quick and Plastic Man wondered if the two knew each other. His question was quickly answered when he saw the crutch kid tap the red-shirted one on the shoulder and the kid turned around. 

Plastic Man’s target sighed and turned around to face the other kid.

“What is it, Freddy?”

The crutch kid, who Plastic Man now knew was Freddy, looked at the other kid in annoyance and shifted his weight on the crutch.

“What is it? What else would I be asking you about, Billy?”

Billy. So that was this kid’s name. What’s his relation to Captain Marvel? And what are they talking about?

Plastic Man watched as Billy adjusted the heavy textbook in arms and rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

“Look Freddy, every time I see you at school we talk about superheroes. Can we just get to class?”

Freddy looked like his eyes were gonna pop out of his head as he leaned on his crutch and walked alongside Billy.

“Are you kidding me?! You can’t just keep all the details to yourself!”

Plastic Man subtly looked up at the kid named Billy and studied his reaction to what Freddy was pressing him about. He seemed to consider something for a moment and then let out a frustrated sigh.

“Fine, I’ll tell you about—“

The shrill school bell interrupted Billy and the two boys looked at each before rushing to class. Plastic Man bounced up and down on Billy’s backpack and tried to not feel sick. It was worse than being on a rollercoaster with five loop-de-loops.

It was a long day after that and Plastic Man hardly heard anything that was worth taking note of…Except that both of the boys seemed to know a lot about the Justice League. Freddy pressed Billy for details about something secret during lunch and Plastic Man caught pieces from their whispering but nothing immediately stuck out as suspicious. The two kids were probably just obsessed with heroes and knew obscure facts, nothing out of the ordinary.

Finally, the last school bell rang and all the kids starting gathering up their school supplies to leave. Billy and Freddy walked alongside each other in the hallways and Billy dropped off his textbook in his locker while Freddy waited. Freddy looked around for a moment and then leaned forward, inches away from Billy and perfectly within earshot of Plastic Man.

“Are you working tonight?”

Working? At his age?

Billy nodded absentmindedly and closed his locker.

“Yeah, I left earlier and someone was worried about me. I gotta go back for at least a few hours. Think you can save me some dinner?”

“Sure, but I’m not sure if it’ll taste good re-heated.”

Billy shrugged as him and Freddy left the school grounds.

“Hey, food is food.”

Plastic Man felt himself grow a little fonder of this Billy kid after hearing that simple statement and continued bouncing along on the kid’s backpack. Billy looked over his shoulder and shouted at Freddy, who was walking in a different direction.

“See you later at home, Freddy!”

“Bye, Billy!”

Plastic Man was waiting for the opportune moment to stretch his way off of Billy’s backpack but before he could, he noticed that the kid returned to the same alleyway that Captain Marvel dissipated into earlier. Billy threw his bag onto the ground and Plastic Man struggled to not let out a yelp as he hit the concrete. He watched Billy, curious why he was stopping in this particular part of the city.

Before he could find out, a couple of suspicious-looking individuals came out of the shadows and peered down at the kid. The bigger of the two put his hands in his suit jacket and stared down at Billy, asserting dominance based entirely on his height.

“Hey kid, you know anyone by the name of Eel O’Brian?”

Plastic Man flinched when he heard his old nickname and was about to shift back into his original superhero form but was interrupted by Billy.  
“No, I don’t know anybody named Eel…Is he a friend of yours?”

The taller of the two thugs started chuckling and walked towards Billy and placed a large hand on his skinny shoulder. Plastic Man silently morphed off Billy’s backpack and hid behind a trashcan, intently watching the tense interaction. 

“You could say that. Now look, you better not be lying to me, kid.”

Billy opened his mouth in shock and responded in a nervous but genuine tone.

“I’m serious! I don’t know anyone named Eel! I think I would remember somebody with that name—“

The thug grabbed Billy by the scruff of his jacket and pinned him against the brick wall of the nearby building. He barred his yellowing teeth in a snarl as he stared down the kid in his grasp.

“Don’t get cocky with me, kid. I don’t like brats with attitude. I’m gonna ask you again, do you know anybody by the name…Plastic Man?”

“No, I—Wait did you say—“

The thug tightened his grip on the kid’s jacket as his snarl turned into a sickening grin.

“So you do know Eel. I knew you were lying about something.”

Billy’s blue eyes were suddenly filled with courage and Plastic Man, who was still hiding behind the trashcan, felt fear twist his stomach and quickly shifted himself back to his original height and was about to stretch forward to save Billy but something else happened before he could do anything:

“SHAZAM!”

A single bolt of lighting shot down from the cloudy sky above and struck Billy square in the chest. A thick fog appeared and Plastic Man stood there dumbfounded as…Captain Marvel himself emerged from the disappearing mist.

Captain Marvel towered over the thug who was only a moment ago threatening him, and punched him clean across the alleyway and Plastic Man could hear the thug’s impact on some trashcans echo back towards them. The other thug was terrified for his life and ran away before he potentially got killed.

After everything settled down, Captain Marvel finally noticed Plastic Man and let out a surprised yelp while Plastic Man felt like his brain was having a meltdown. Captain Marvel stared at Plastic Man in disbelief.

“You used to be a gangster?!”

Plastic Man finally snapped his brain back to attention and gestured wildly at Captain Marvel.

“Never mind that, you’re a kid!”

Captain Marvel shrugged, not sure how to begin to explain how he gained his powers.

“I’m twelve, almost thirteen so technically a teen.”

“Still! Oh, wow that explains so much about how you were acting earlier…”

Captain Marvel walked over towards Plastic Man and was actually a few inches taller than him. He studied the flexible hero for moment and then shook his head.

“I just don’t get how you were in a gang. You just don’t…look intimidating.”

Plastic Man gasped and then extended his height a few inches, to make eye contact with Captain Marvel.

“Kid, if you saw me before I got these powers, you would have understood exactly what made me intimidating.”

Captain Marvel scoffed and then started chuckling so hard he had to sit down on a nearby crate. Plastic Man shifted back into his original height and then took a seat next to the other hero, letting out his own laughter at their unusual situation.

After a moment, Captain Marvel finally caught his breath and looked over at Plastic Man with so many questions in his blue eyes.

“So…Are we just going to keep everything that happened a secret?”

Plastic Man shrugged and smiled at Captain Marvel.

“I guess we should. I mean, nobody would believe your story about me being a gangster.”

Captain Marvel sniggered and half-heartedly punched Plastic Man in the arm.

“You know what I mean, Plas. You’ll keep my secret identity safe, right? I don’t want any more villains coming after my family.”

Plastic Man stopped messing around and offered his hand to Captain Marvel. The other hero smiled and shook Plastic Man’s hand.

“I promise I’ll keep your secret…Billy.”

Captain Marvel stared at Plastic Man in surprise 

“How did you know my name? I haven’t told you my name yet.”

Plastic Man looked down at the ground and muttered quickly under his breath, hoping Billy wouldn’t catch any of it.

“I kinda attached myself to your backpack and eavesdropped on your conversations with Freddy, fell asleep during your classes, listened to you talk about the League with Freddy, ate some of your lunch when you weren’t looking, heard your name said over and over again by your friend Freddy…”

Unfortunately, Captain Marvel heard all of the confession, then covered his face in his hands and groaned.

“Oh my gosh, you are the worst, Plas.”

Plastic Man looked up and tried to defend himself.

“Hey! I was worried when you left the Watchtower in a hurry and I just had to make sure you weren’t dealing with a kidnapping or something on your own.”

Captain Marvel lifted his head and tried not to laugh as he spoke.

“I was worried cause I forgot to study for a Spanish test, Plas.”

Plastic Man chuckled despite himself and that set Captain Marvel off again. The two kept laughing until they finally calmed down and Plastic Man decided it was time to head back to the Watchtower. He offered a hand up to Captain Marvel and the younger hero took it. They both stood in an open area of the alleyway and Plastic Man contacted the Watchtower.

“George? I found Captain Marvel and we’re ready to beam back up to the Watchtower.”

Captain Marvel looked over at Plastic Man.

“Did you mean it, Plas? You’ll keep my secret from the rest of the League?”

Plastic Man turned to Captain Marvel and did the whole my-lips-are-sealed gesture but his lips actually turned in a zipper and zipped shut. His muffled response sounded like an affirmative but it was hard to tell. 

Captain Marvel sighed with a smile on his face as the familiar feeling of being materialized transported them back to the Watchtower. 

“I still can’t believe Plastic Man used to be a gangster.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was an absolute joy to write and I had so much fun writing everything leading up to the reveal of Billy and Patrick's secret identities. I hope you all will stay tuned for future fics and potentially the introductions of more "uncles" for Billy Batson. Any kudos or comments you drop make my day! Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
